Things I Have Learned In My First 26 Years On This Planet

This year, I’ve learned that life can’t be pared down to a list. It’s our modern nature to compartmentalize everything, and I’m a modern creature. A roller coaster is the perfect analogy for life, though the downs are certainly not something I’m throwing my hands up in glee to get to. The ups are just as exciting to anticipate as they are to experience.

Every choice you make has a consequence, and those consequences are not always what you’d think they’ll be. You accept the things you cannot change, but realize that list isn’t actually as big as you think. In fact, that list of things you can’t change is one of the things you can change. Courage is prettier than fear, but they are both agents of change.

Girls are still the devil.

You will get the most joy out of working in your strengths. You don’t have to accept compromise. People who say otherwise are simply scared of the relational consequences, but don’t think of how accepting those compromises affects their relationships just as negatively. Living for you is one of the greatest things you can do for others. The best you is the person other people love you for.

I’m wrong about almost everything I know. You think this changes as you get older, that you get right about more things. The thing is, the more things you know, the more things you’re likely wrong about. As a kid, I was wrong about Santa and the Easter Bunny. As I’ve gotten older I’ve just found new, more mature fairy tales to believe in.

Hey Rosetta is one of the greatest Canadian bands we’ll ever know.

Time is precious. Take some of it and enjoy it. Stop, meditate, breathe. You won’t believe how much time you have until you stop filling it up with shit to do.

I’m not who I was yesterday, and today I’ll never be who I’ll be tomorrow. Live right now. Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Each moment more so. Take as much time to breathe as you possibly can.

The moments you are awake are most defined by the time you take to rest.

The first 26 years of life are the best years of your life, until the first 27 years of your life are the best.